General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Sweet-Spot Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce 650 Ti Boost vs Sapphire 7790 OC 2GB

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 03:34 PM PDT

AMD's Bonaire takes on Nvidia's Boosted 650 Ti

It wasn't long ago when AMD announced an all-new GPU dubbed the HD 7790 1GB based on new silicon named "Bonaire" that, at $150, was designed to slot in between its HD 7770 and the more-expensive HD 7850. Not surprisingly, Nvidia then announced a revamped "Boost" version of its GTX 650 Ti, with added support for dual-card SLI, higher clock speeds, and a 2GB frame buffer, countering AMD's effort and shoring up what both companies refer to as the "GPU sweet spot." This month, AMD counterattacks Nvidia's counterattack with a 2GB version of the HD 7790 from Sapphire, leveling the playing field and raising the stakes by including a super-sweet game bundle. Can Nvidia's revamped 650 Ti Boost dominate the midrange GPU field, or is AMD's silicon the better deal? And how do they measure up to the former champs in this price range? To help settle this feud once and for all, we benchmarked not just the new guys, but all of the cards in this tax bracket.

Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7790 OC 2GB

When Sapphire called and asked if we were interested in checking out its 2GB version of the recently launched HD 7790, we had just one question: Does a bear benchmark in the woods? We had already sampled a reference design card, and the Asus 1GB version (see benchmark chart), so we were very curious to see what difference an extra 1GB of memory would make in our benchmarks. Since we run all the tests at 1080p, it wouldn't have a chance to shine at higher resolutions; we figured the extra headroom might instead help with antialiasing, but we were wrong, as all cards remained pretty close in scores.

Sapphire's card is the first HD 7790 we've seen with 2GB of memory.

Sapphire's card is the first HD 7790 we've seen with 2GB of memory.

Despite its midrange status, this 7790 card has several high-end features, including a fancy aftermarket cooler (as opposed to the reference cooler), a backplate for increased cooling on the board's caps and VRMs, CrossFire support, and a bundle that includes an HDMI cable, a CrossFire cable, and a copy of BioShock Infinite. This is also the Overclock Edition, so the core clock is goosed 50MHz over stock speeds, and the memory gets a 100MHz nudge, as well. Like other HD 7790 cards, this Bonaire GPU features eight power states (the HD 7970 only uses four) to help it more efficiently use power and remain mostly silent all the time. This card uses much less power than the GTX 650 Ti Boost, which is a bit of a change of fortunes since on the high-end it's Nvidia that has the TDP advantage.

The HD 7790 uses a single 6-pin PCIe connector, takes up two slots like every other video card, and has a semi-low TDP of just 85W. This card's main neutering has taken place on its memory pipeline, which is skinny at 128 bits, whereas the GTX 650 Ti Boost has a 192-bit memory bus. This 7790 features 896 stream processors, has two DVI ports, an HDMI port, and DisplayPort, and support's AMD EyeFinity multidisplay technology.

In our tests, the Sapphire card performed decently but it faces a few hurdles. First, it's not as fast as the more expensive GTX 650 Ti Boost from EVGA, but the difference is just a handful of frames in all the games we test, with a few notable exceptions. In Battlefield 3 and BioShock Infinite, the GTX 650 Ti had a clear advantage, but in the rest of the tests, it was close enough to call it a wash. We also didn't see any real advantage to having a 2GB frame buffer versus the 1GB when compared to the Asus HD 7790, so while we're certainly not opposed to having more RAM just in case, our tests didn't reveal any measurable difference running tests at 1080p with 4X AA. An even bigger problem for the Sapphire card is the HD 7850, which is an older card but, as our tests show, is clearly faster, by a decent amount across the board, and the HD 7850 is actually less expensive than the Sapphire card, making it a better overall deal when looking at performance alone.

We said last month that we think the HD 7790 is a great card for 1080p gaming, and the Sapphire card doesn't change that, but it does show you can save money by going with a 1GB version. We also love the fact that this card, and all HD 7790s as of press time, include a free copy of BioShock Infinite, which majorly tilts the advantage to AMD in this price category since performance is so close among cards.

Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7790 OC 2GB

score:8

$170, www.sapphiretech.com

EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Superclocked

EVGA offers four versions of the GTX 650 Ti Boost, so it sent us its Superclocked double-RAM version, which, at $180, costs $30 more than the stock version (at press time there was a $10 rebate, however). This card looks exactly like Nvidia's reference design, so the only changes are internal, in the form of a core overclock of 92MHz and twice the frame buffer at 2GB. Like other "Boost" cards, this GPU features a wider 12-bit memory interface than the standard Ti, which features a 128-bit bus. It sports 768 CUDA cores and a 1,137MHz Boost Clock, which is also a new feature, as the standard Ti didn't overclock at all. The card offers HDMI, DisplayPort, and two DVI outputs, and like all EVGA cards we've tested, includes a bare-bones bundle featuring just a VGA-to-DVI connector and a Molex-to-PCIe adapter. One other new feature of the Boost version of the card that deserves mention is the fact that, in addition to overclocking and higher performance, this version of the card now supports dual-card SLI, which is a first for cards in this price range.

Nvidia's GTX 650 Ti Boost brings overclocking and SLI to the sub-$200 GPU world.

Nvidia's GTX 650 Ti Boost brings overclocking and SLI to the sub-$200 GPU world.

On paper, the GTX 650 Ti Boost certainly looks to be a faster card than the AMD HD 7790 due to its wider memory bus and higher clock speeds, and in the real world of Lab testing, we saw those results laid bare. The Nvidia card is faster, but the AMD card isn't too far behind, and nips at its heels despite having a 55W deficit. The real issue for the GTX 650 Ti Boost is, once again, our little friend the HD 7850 and his $190 buddy the GTX 660. The HD 7850 is faster in some tests and costs less, but the two are very close overall, making it hard to recommend the Nvidia card in that matchup. The GTX 660 is only a smidgen faster despite costing more, so we're inclined to say save your money and get the Boost when comparing those two cards.

Finally, on the software side of things, this card includes a $75 coupon to spend in-game on either Hawken, World of Tanks, or PlanetSide 2. When compared to the inclusion of BioShock Infinite with the AMD card, this offering seems rather weak in comparison, so Nvidia has some catching-up to do. On the hardware side, though, it's clearly the front-runner at around $170 or so, so it's a shame its bundle brings it down.

EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Superclocked

score:8

$180, www.evga.com

Benchmarks
  Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 OC 2GB EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Asus HD 7790 DirectCU II 1GB XFX Radon HD 7850 Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC
Price $170 $180 $150 $160 $190
3DMark Fire Strike 3,708 4,132 3,745 4,567 4,589
Catzilla (Tiger) Beta 3,727 5,622 3,752 4,908 6,247
Unigine Heaven 4.0 (fps) 19 26 20 25 29
Hitman Absolution (fps) 27 30
 26 37 33
Crysis 3 (fps) 15 21 12 20 20
Shogun 2 (fps) 43 47 43 52 54
Far Cry 3 (fps) 41 47 42 47 57
BioShock Infinite (fps) 35 52 36 47 65
Tomb Raider (fps) 17 20 14 22 20
Battlefield 3 (fps) 31 42 32 44 44
Core/Memory Clock (MHz) 1,050/6,400 1,072/6,008 1,075/6,400 860/4,800 980/6,000

Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition in an Asus P9X79 motherboard with 16GB of DDR3/1600 and a Thermaltake ToughPower 1,050W PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows 8 Ultimate. All tests are run at 1920x1080 with 4X AA except for 3DMark and Catzilla.

CyberLink PowerDVD 13 Ultra Review

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 03:25 PM PDT

Lucky 13

Like Photoshop and Microsoft Word, CyberLink's PowerDVD has the ability to give users upgrade fatigue. Sure, the new features are nice, but is the latest version really worth it? For many, the answer has been no, thus you find a lot of folks still rolling Word 2003, Photoshop 7, and, well, PowerDVD 9.

PowerDVD 13 supports video sharpening that makes Blu-ray content without it look like DVDs (left).

PowerDVD 13 supports video sharpening that makes Blu-ray content without it look like DVDs (left).

We're here to tell you that if you've waited this long, it might finally be time to get off the pot because PowerDVD 13 brings some compelling features worthy of upgrading. The most eye-popping of these is the ability to do real-time sharpening of HD video streams. If you think there's no point in sharpening Blu-ray content, think again—in our tests, the results of this feature applied to even high-def content were stunning at times. This so-called "TrueTheater HD" has been included in previous versions of PowerDVD, but until now it was only used to upscale standard-def content to "HD." The ability to use it on Blu-ray streams is unique to the newest version.

To test the feature, we ran PowerDVD 13 on an Acer all-in-one, a couple of high-end gaming rigs, and a Sapphire Edge VS8 box, with monitors varying from 23 to 30 inches. PowerDVD 13's official minimum spec for HD sharpening is Win7 and up, with a second- or third-gen Core proc, and a GeForce 8400 or Radeon HD 4000 and up part. The slowest box we ran the application on was the Edge VS8 with a quad-core A8-4555M. While the monitor can greatly impact the image quality, we still saw an increase in sharpness across several different display sizes and qualities of glass. We also tried the feature on a Samsung 50-inch LCD set, with the Sapphire playing Avatar with sharpness manually cranked, and the difference was phenomenal. There can be some sharpening artifacts if turned up too high, but at TV viewing distances we couldn't see them while being impressed by the difference.

There are other changes to PowerDVD, including a faster startup time, and—bravo!—the annoying-as-hell MoovieLive startup page that began popping up a couple of versions ago can now be found on the side of a milk carton. To many long-time PowerDVD users, that alone is worth the upgrade. Since many people aren't even using discs anymore, PowerDVD has adapted to supporting most of the esoteric codecs in use today and has powerful subtitle support, allowing timing offsets and positioning, too. We used everyone's favorite free player, VLC, next to PowerDVD 13 and found PowerDVD 13's rendering to have better contrast and tones by default.

Of course, there's still the cool ability to control PowerDVD 13 using the free smartphone app. There really is a whole lot of win here for people who still watch legacy disc formats or even HD ripped content.

CyberLink offers three tiers for PowerDVD 13: Deluxe, Pro, and Ultra. At $55, Deluxe is the bottom feeder and doesn't offer any 3D or Blu-ray support. For $80, Pro gets you Blu-ray support, but not Blu-ray 3D support. Both do support HD-res files, so if you primarily play your own ripped files, this might be a good budget option. At $99, you get 3D support and support for streaming files with DTCP, as well as a free license for the company's Android, iOS, and Windows 8/RT versions, which would otherwise run you $20.

Perhaps the biggest negative to PowerDVD 13 is that most people have outgrown it, just as they have moved beyond physical media. For the most part, the freebie VLC does everything you need. But for those of you who do demand higher image quality from your video or who run an HTPC to play Blu-ray discs, PowerDVD 13 is well worth the cash.

$99, www.cyberlink.com

April 2013: Builder's Bible

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 02:25 PM PDT

April IssueIn the PDF archive of the April 2013 issue you can find:

  • The Builder's Bible
  • Cloud Backup
  • Intel's NUC
  • AntiVirus roundup
  • iBuyPower Revolt Review
  • And more!

May 2013: Best Free Software!

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 02:24 PM PDT

May IssueIn the PDF archive of the May 2013 issue you can find:

  • Best Free Software
  • Nvidia's GTX Titan
  • Refresh-Rate Challenge
  • Acer W700
  • And more!

Corsair H100i CPU Cooler Review

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 02:19 PM PDT

Quirky, but worth it

Although 280mm radiators and 140mm fans are becoming all the rage in closed-loop coolers, Corsair is showing that we shouldn't count out 240mm rads just yet. The H100i cools admirably, installs relatively easily, and inspires confidence in its longevity. What more can a gearhead ask for?

You can control the

You can control the "i" variant of the H100i from within Windows, using Corsair's free "Link" software.

Well, it was not all wine and roses at first: The pump was pretty noisy. We had to Google around for a solution, then Google some more for a direct link to a firmware update, which we could not find on the H100i's product page. However, the firmware updated quickly (didn't even require a reboot), and the pump's noise went down to a low murmur and stayed there. There was no CD for the "Corsair Link" fan-control software, though, so more Internet foraging was required.

On the bright side, the H100i has one of the easiest installs we've encountered. There is a minimum of widgets to snap together, which lowers the frustration level (and saves you from having to scour your carpet when you drop something tiny). You put a bracket underneath the motherboard, hold it there with a few provided screws, and lower the heatsink onto the screws, which connect to another bracket that you slapped onto the heatsink. Then, secure the heatsink bracket to the motherboard bracket with another set of screws. And if you're using an LGA2011 motherboard, you don't even use the first bracket. Even a caveman could do it! The cooler is intelligent, with similar functionality to the Kick Ass award–winning H80i we reviewed earlier this year.

We recently switched our CPU-cooling test-bed case from a Thermaltake Level 10 GT to a spacious Corsair 900D, by the way, so our performance here can't be directly compared to previous results. How do you judge the H100i, then? Well, we also installed the ever-popular Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo air cooler for comparison. With our Core i7-3960X running overclocked to a little over 4.1GHz on all cores, the H100i performed better on Quiet mode than the 212 Evo did on Performance. That's pretty excellent cooling prowess—and you could add two more fans to the radiator (provided they fit in your case).

That helps excuse the fact that the H100i creates nearly intolerable noise when set to Performance mode, since it looks like you won't need to run the fans that hard most of the time, as long as your case has good airflow. We should note, however, that the pump requires a SATA power connection. Not a deal-breaker, but neat-freaks might have trouble threading this cable that close to their CPU and still keeping everything tidy. You'll probably want to use an extension cable or give the pump its own line since the distance between the CPU and most drive cages is usually too great to use a single cable for both locations.

Despite its quirks, though, the H100i is a highly respectable piece of gear. The firmware and cabling issues are not difficult or tedious to resolve, and the build quality is worthy of a 5-year warranty (the longest of any brand of closed-loop liquid cooler).

$110 (street), www.corsair.com

Steam Box Prototypes Detailed

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 12:49 PM PDT

SteamOS

Powerful, open, and expandable

Valve has just announced some concrete details about their custom-made Steam Box prototype. The company has built a completely custom enclosure that will house a "high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts."

Inside the 300 prototypes will be a variety of graphics cards—including the Titan, GTX780, GTX760, and GTX660—and processors—the i7-4770, i5-4570, and some i3s. All of the machines will ship with 16GB DDR3-1600 RAM and 3GB DDR5 on the graphics cards with a 1TB/8GB hybrid SSHD. The power supply will be a 450-watt unit rated 80Plus Gold. The full machine measures only 12x12.4x2.9 inches and will be running SteamOS.

The post by Designer Greg Coomer, also shed some light on details that were missing from the initial Steam Machine announcement. He was quick to establish that these prototypes may not be representative of the Steam Machines available for sale in 2014 which "will be made by a variety of companies." Coomer says that Valve's biggest goals with the prototypes were to "combine high-end power with a living-room-friendly form factor," and to "test living-room scenarios on a box that's as open as possible."

Hardcore PC enthusiasts don't have to worry. The post specifically mentions that "Steam customers who already have perfectly great gaming hardware at home in the form of a powerful PC," aren't the target audience. Coomer goes on to say that Valve is "working on ways to use our in-home streaming technology" in an attempt to "bridge the gap into the living room… without spending lots of money."

What do you guys think about Valve's prototype?

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Origin PC Now Dealing Exclusively with Nvidia Graphics, Claims AMD GPUs are Problematic

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 09:50 AM PDT

Origin PC GenesisBoutique builder goes all-in with Nvidia GPUs

Well now, here's an interesting development. We received a note from Kevin Wasielewski, co-founder and CEO of boutique system builder Origin PC, alerting us that his company is no longer offering customers an option to configure rigs with AMD graphics cards. All traces of AMD brand GPUs are being removed from the website, and from here on out, Origin PC is dealing exclusively with Nvidia for graphics. This isn't a marketing ploy, but a decision that was made for a number of reasons.

"This decision was based on a combination of many factors including customer experiences, GPU performance/drivers/stability, and requests from our support staff," Wasielewski said in a statement. "Based on our 15+ years of experience building and selling award winning high-performance PCs, we strongly feel the best PC gaming experience is on Nvidia GPUs."

It's pretty interesting that Origin PC's support staff requested the removal of AMD GPUs from all of the systems the company offers. We reached out to Origin PC for clarification on what kinds of trouble it was running into using AMD graphics cards and are waiting to hear back. We'll update this post when we know more.

Update

Alvaro Masis, a Technical Support Manager for Origin PC, issued the following statement to Maximum PC:

"Primarily the overall issues have been stability of the cards, overheating, performance, scaling, and the amount of time to receive new drivers on both desktop and mobile GPUs.We've also seen a high percentage of failures on AMD cards in the field within the first few months. Even after replacing with multiple AMD cards the failures continued. Switching these same exact customers to Nvidia resulted in fixing these failures and therefore obviously a much more positive customer experience."

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Steve Ballmer Gets Another Pay Cut After Slipping on Surface

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 08:45 AM PDT

Steve BallmerDon't weep for Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer's final year at Microsoft is one that's been wrought with challenges and a few missteps, such as the $900 million charge the Redmond outfit took on unsold Surface inventory. In addition, Windows 8 sales haven't been as high as Microsoft hoped, which is largely the result of a slumping PC market in the wake of consumers turning their attention to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Due to all this, Ballmer's pay was again cut this year, according to Microsoft's 2013 proxy statement. Don't go shedding too many tears on his behalf, however, he still raked in a healthy $1.26 million for his efforts, including $697.500 in base salary and a $500,000 bonus.

In 2012, Ballmer made $1.38 million by way of a $685,500 salary and $682,500 bonus. This year, his bonus was 79 percent of the total he was eligible for.

"The company faced challenges due to weakness in the consumer PC market. While the launch of Windows 8 in October 2012 resulted in over 100 million licenses sold, the challenging PC market coupled with the significant product launch costs for Windows 8 and Surface resulted in an 18 percent decline in Windows Division operating income," Microsoft wrote in its proxy statement. "Slower than anticipated sales of Surface RT devices and the decision to reduce prices to accelerate sales resulted in a $900 million inventory charge."

Microsoft gave credit to Ballmer for leading the company in its transformation to a devices and service firm in 2013, and for continuing to make progress in its devices and services strategy.

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Would You Buy a Dual Booting Handset with Android and Windows Phone?

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 07:55 AM PDT

HTC One Dual BootMicrosoft makes an interesting proposal to HTC

Desperate times call for desperate measures, or at least for some outside the box thinking. Microsoft, for example, is struggling to promote its Windows Phone platform as a viable alternative to Android and iOS, but so far its market share (3.7 percent) is barely a blip on the radar (though Windows Phone did surpass BlackBerry for third place). Meanwhile, HTC just posted its first quarterly loss and there's little reason to think it will reverse course. Maybe the two can help each other out.

Microsoft's proposal to HTC is that it cram its Windows Phone platform alongside Android on its handsets, Bloomberg reports. As added encouragement, Microsoft is willing to drastically reduce or even eliminate its licensing fee, so the real risk would be in whether or not there would be an audience for dual OS devices, and not the cost of licensing Windows Phone.

HTC was first out of the gate with an Android phone (HTC Dream, otherwise known as the T-Mobile G1) and also the first to offer a Windows Phone handset, though it hasn't touched Windows Phone since June, nor was it planning to anytime soon.

This is an interesting proposal on a number of levels. For one, it shows how far Microsoft is willing to go to get its Windows Phone platform in front of more eyeballs. And on the consumer side, you have to wonder if a dual-booting phone would lure Android users who might be intrigued with Windows Phone, but unwilling to commit for whatever reason. Imagine if the HTC One also ran Windows Phone -- how much more popular might it be?

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Paradise Desk on Kickstarter Boasts More Connections than a Hollywood Agent

Posted: 04 Oct 2013 05:45 AM PDT

Paradise DeskFinally, someone built a desk for power users

A person could argue that not nearly enough attention is paid to the computer desk, the one piece of equipment that you're apt to hold onto for years and years. David Wrobel set out to change that and so he came up with the Paradise Desk, supposedly the first desk designed from head to toe for the computer enthusiast. This thing is loaded with features, and thanks to Kickstarter, it's going to be a reality.

With more than two weeks to go, Paradise Desk has received over $80,000 in pledges from around 300 backers, far surpassing the project's $30,000 goal. Half of the six stretch goals have already been reached, and if Paradise Desk receives $130,000 in funding, all six stretch goals will have been met.

So, what's so special about this desk? The concept of the Paradise Desk is that it acts as an extension of the computer and all your various electronic gadgets. Your PC and monitor both plug directly into the desk, which helps reduce cable clutter. It also features seven built in USB 3.0 ports, audio ports, DVI input, four power plugs located near the back, and a power LED.

Thanks to having met stretch goals, it will also have an HDMI port, an additional USB port, and a headphone holder. If the other goals are met, the final design could also boast a cable package, undermounted lighting, and a cup holder.

Check out the project's Kickstarter page and let us know what you think!

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